Recently, a post on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform, sparked widespread discussion about robot vacuums: when struggling to choose a robot vacuum, a netizen commented, “Since I can’t tell which one is better, I’ll pick the company that treats its employees better.”
This comment largely reflects the awkward predicament of the robot vacuum industry.
In the past, robot vacuums were a representative product category of the home appliance consumption upgrade. Iterations in navigation methods, the addition of mopping functions, and the popularization of automatic dust collection significantly improved the consumer experience. Today, however, nearly all mainstream products come standard with LiDAR navigation, AI recognition, and self-cleaning docking stations. Gaps in parameters are narrowing, and differences in users’ intuitive experiences are becoming increasingly blurred.
Correspondingly, the influx of massive capital has trapped industry players in marketing wars, price wars, and R&D battles with minimal results. As a result, even though the industry is still growing rapidly and China’s penetration rate is far from reaching that of foreign markets, major players including Roborock and Ecovacs are facing a dilemma: revenue is rising while profits are not, forcing them to seek new growth drivers.
In fact, similar moments are not uncommon in the history of consumer electronics. After high definition became standard in the color TV industry, differences gradually disappeared, and price became the defining factor. Today, robot vacuums are treading the same path.
01 Rising Revenue, Stagnant Profits
Judging solely by shipment volume, the robot vacuum industry still maintains a strong momentum.
In 2024, global shipments reached 20.6 million units, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%; sales volume hit 9.31 billion US dollars, up 19.7% year-on-year. Beyond rapid growth, the market still has considerable room for expansion. According to Statista, the penetration rate of robot vacuums in China is approximately 6%, far lower than the 10% level in Europe and the United States.
Yet from the perspective of China’s market structure, the industry shows signs of stagnation. Industry concentration is an excellent indicator of an industry’s maturity. In the early stages of development, an industry typically has numerous players competing fiercely. However, even on a global scale, four out of the top five robot vacuum brands are Chinese (Roborock, Ecovacs, Xiaomi, and Dreame), accounting for a combined 47.5% of the market share. Domestically, leading enterprises such as Ecovacs, Roborock, Yunjing, and Dreame dominate 90% of the market.
The combination of a fast-growing market and a highly mature competitive landscape has led industry players to adopt an abnormal growth model: revenue rises while profits remain stagnant.
Roborock’s revenue surged by 38% in 2024, but its net profit dropped by 3.6%; in the first quarter of 2025, its revenue skyrocketed by 86% year-on-year, yet net profit fell by 32.9%. Ecovacs faces a similar embarrassment: while its revenue continues to grow, its net profit is now less than half of what it was in 2021.
The reasons behind this are not difficult to understand.
On one hand, as a tech product, intelligent experience is the key to competition in the industry, leading to high R&D costs. Roborock’s R&D expenses have increased year by year from 2016 to 2024; in 2024 alone, it invested 971 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.9%.
However, the industry’s current R&D efforts are increasingly constrained by costs and product form factors. For example, Roborock’s LiDAR tower solution is limited by the height of the device body. At the same time, frequent mobility of technical personnel has led to widespread homogeneous competition in the industry.
From the user’s perspective, the experience upgrades brought by innovative achievements are barely noticeable, while the impact of price increases is highly apparent. Consumers’ needs are simple: cleanliness and convenience. In reality, however, self-cleaning docking stations still require frequent filter and water tank cleaning; devices occasionally malfunction; and they remain ineffective against oil stains. On Heimao Complaints (a Chinese consumer complaint platform), there are over 13,000 complaints related to “robot vacuums,” and nearly all of the top 100 complaints involve product malfunctions and after-sales service issues.
On the other hand, marketing expenses have become another heavy burden. Robot vacuums are typical low-frequency durable goods with low repurchase rates, so acquiring new users relies almost entirely on channels and advertising. Ecovacs’ sales expenses have long accounted for over 30% of its revenue, far exceeding its R&D investment; Roborock’s sales expenses in 2024 even soared by 73% year-on-year. As a result, more investment in marketing leads to higher revenue, but profits are further diluted.
More critically, price wars have become a long-term trend. In the early days, high-end models often cost over 5,000 yuan, but today, products priced between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan online can also be equipped with all-in-one docking stations and AI mapping functions. Leading manufacturers continue to cut prices to seize market share, resulting in a cycle of “rising revenue but falling profit per unit.”
Despite being labeled as “smart hardware,” the robot vacuum business is increasingly resembling that of durable consumer goods.
02 Costly Experimentation or Circumventing Obstacles?
If it is difficult for robot vacuums (as a product category) to find a path to significantly improve the user experience in the short term, robot vacuum enterprises still have options to explore.
The most prominent strategy is going global.
As mentioned earlier, Chinese robot vacuum enterprises have largely defined this industry, and North America and Western Europe have long been the second-largest markets after China. Expanding beyond the Chinese market is also a way to avoid internal competition.
Through a combination of Amazon and independent websites, Roborock’s overseas revenue exceeded 6 billion yuan in 2024, surpassing its domestic market revenue; Ecovacs has established a firm foothold in Europe, attempting to replicate the globalization path of white goods enterprises. The higher purchasing power and brand premium in overseas markets can alleviate, to some extent, the profit pressure faced domestically.
Yunjing, a latecomer, is also rapidly expanding its global business. In 2024, Yunjing’s overseas revenue increased by nearly 700% year-on-year, and its products are now exported to more than 30 countries and regions. According to public reports, a relevant person in charge of Yunjing stated, “It is expected that by 2025, Yunjing will cover more than 50 overseas markets, and its overseas business is expected to grow by 3 to 4 times.”
Another strategy is cross-industry expansion.
While the robot vacuum launched by DJI shocked the industry, it is actually Dreame (a player in the robot vacuum industry) that is the true cross-industry pioneer. In August this year, Dreame Technology announced its official entry into the drone business, strategically positioning itself in the trillion-yuan low-altitude economy track. Dreame stated that it is actively building a professional drone R&D team, and the core team structure has already taken shape. Also in August, Dreame announced its foray into car manufacturing, with its first ultra-luxury pure electric product directly targeting the Bugatti Veyron, scheduled to be unveiled in 2027.
The company initially started with cordless vacuum cleaners, with its core advantages lying in high-speed motors and aerodynamics. Today, it continues to extend this core technical line to new areas: first, it launched action cameras, entering the territory dominated by GoPro and DJI; then, it moved into drones, applying its motor and sensor advantages to aerial devices; and it even announced plans to build cars, using electric drive systems as a breakthrough point.
On the surface, these expansions seem to span unrelated fields, but the core logic remains consistent: seeking new application scenarios around the “underlying hardware capability” of motors.
The challenge, however, is that nearly all these tracks are dominated by giants: the action camera market is highly saturated, DJI has built an impenetrable moat in the drone industry, and car manufacturing involves high-stakes competition in capital, supply chains, and branding. Whether Dreame’s cross-industry expansion can secure a genuine position in these industries still requires long-term verification.
From an industry perspective, behind these enterprises’ various explorations lies a harsh reality: when profits in their core business are squeezed, Chinese robot vacuum manufacturers have no choice but to pursue larger growth stories. This is either a bold attempt to break the deadlock or a potentially costly experiment.
03 Conclusion
A decade ago, robot vacuums carried the vision of “freeing hands”; a decade later, they have become more of a psychological comfort. The industry lingers in a cycle of function stacking and price wars—it has neither truly transcended the logic of traditional home appliances nor fulfilled the promise of “smart living.” In all likelihood, its future will not be “the next Apple,” but rather “the next Gree”: winning the market through scale, efficiency, and durability, rather than relying on “one more radar” to command a price premium.
In reality, however, the average transaction price (ATP) of robot vacuums in China is on the rise: the online ATP exceeds 3,000 yuan, and the offline ATP is close to 5,000 yuan. This means that consumers are not unwilling to spend money—they just haven’t seen genuine value differentiation.
At the end of the day, the essence of “intelligence” boils down to two words: usability.
|
